‘As soon as we arrived the kids got started on the Woolley Grange Sheep Challenge treasure hunt,’ writes a Guide insider after a stay at this ‘beautiful Jacobean manor house in lovely grounds’.

‘The surrounds are dramatic, the interiors pretty spectacular too.’ Readers report much to enjoy at Robert Dorrien-Smith’s gloriously isolated island hotel.

In the heart of Constable country, Wendy and Jim Sarton’s ancient manor house is a hotspot for painting courses.

'In its glory, in the very beautiful Otter valley', this Elizabethan manor house is the fifth member of Robin Hutson’s Pig family.

‘One for traditionalists,’ write trusted Guide readers, of this child-friendly, dog-friendly Jacobean ancestral home in Thomas Hardy country, run by owners Richard and Brian Prideaux-Brune, with Richard’s wife, Alison.

‘A lovely, family-friendly hotel,’ was Guide inspectors' verdict on this 16th-century stone manor house with spa in beautiful grounds, ‘looking out over rolling hills’.

‘Wonderfully located’ above the River Usk, this Victorian former vicar’s house has a ‘timeless quality’.

Cocooned in ‘lovely, peaceful grounds in glorious countryside’, Jean-Pierre Mifsud’s ‘welcoming’ Victorian country house hotel continues to offer an enjoyable bucolic break.

‘A more beautiful setting than this peaceful bay could hardly be wished for.’

‘More home than hotel’, the Macdonalds’ ‘fabulous’ Victorian country house brims with family history and aristocratic fixtures.

On the Wild Atlantic Way, with views across the ‘dramatic’ Burren Hills to Galway Bay, ‘delightful’ Gregans Castle is ‘the epitome of understated country-house hotel luxury,’ writes a Guide regular this year.

‘The enthusiastic welcome immediately made us feel at home again.’

In a hillside location with ‘stunning sea views’, this supremely family-friendly hotel has something for everyone – indeed, everything for everyone.

Surrounded by manicured lawns, wild meadow flowers and woodland, this Cotswold-stone manor house, a few miles outside Tetbury, has ‘exceptional staff, excellent service, delightful furnishings’.

A tapestry room, a state drawing room, a whisky room, a sitting room lined with gilded Cordoba leather… James Thomson’s 17th-century mansion beside Royal Holyrood Park pleases by a fine excess.

A ‘lovely drive over moors’ leads to this hotel in a North Pennines village built from the stone of a dissolved 12th-century abbey.

A babbling brook etches a course past Louise Dinnes’s ‘good-value, thoroughly dependable’ Victorian pub-with-rooms, where visitors find ‘outstanding food’ and ‘welcoming, efficient service’.

Approached by a private road, this ‘large, rambling but wonderful’ late Georgian mansion, in ‘magnificent grounds’, is owned and cherished by Susannah and Stuart Macpherson.

‘The situation, the view and interior are all marvellous,’ writes a reader this year, of Karen and David Richards’s ‘superb hotel’ (Relais & Château) right by the harbour wall in a fishing village on the Roseland peninsula.

‘Old-fashioned in style and lovely for it.’ Returning guests this year were pleased to discover that Peter Wharton’s ‘splendid’ hotel overlooking Lyme Bay ‘sails gracefully on, without feeling the need to change things for the sake of change’.

‘It is impossible not to like Julia and Paddy Foyle,’ the ‘delightful hosts’ of this ‘sybaritic’ harbourside B&B on the fringes of the Wild Atlantic Way.

‘Aldeburgh is such a delightful place, made perfect by having the Wentworth.’ Praise from a trusted reader for Michael Pritt’s Victorian hotel across the road from the shingle beach.

Grey seals loll the day away along an old ferry slipway on the shores of ‘wild, beautiful’ Loch Glendhu – the ‘superb setting’ for ‘hands-on, energetic’ Tanja Lister and Sonia Virechauveix’s ‘most enjoyable’ small hotel.

‘Tranquil air of relaxed calm’, ‘Good for the soul’, ‘An oasis of peace’. We hear perennial praise for John Edward Joyce’s country house hotel.